Chicken Compost - Wood chip upgrade!

www.edibleacres.org
kzbin.info/door/ibl... - Join as an Edible Acres member for access to members live Question and Answer sessions and to support our work!
www.paypal.me/edibleacres - A simple and direct way to ‘tip’ to help support the time and energy we put into making our videos. Thanks so much!
Edible Acres is a full service permaculture nursery located in the Finger Lakes area of NY state. We grow all layers of perennial food forest systems and provide super hardy, edible, useful, medicinal, easy to propagate, perennial plants for sale locally or for shipping around the country…
www.edibleacres.org/purchase - Your order supports the research and learning we share here on youtube.
We also offer consultation and support in our region or remotely. www.edibleacres.org/services
Happy growing!

[@diamondchamberlin6285]

Listening to happy healthy chickens has got to be one of the most beautiful sounds ! Love chicken TV .

[@erinobrien8408]

I agree!!! My hens talking with me, even purring, is so good for my spirit!!!

[@saltriverorchards4190]

So true

[@barryjanis]

Chickens are great, they can eat everything and turn it into eggs. They will turn your soil like b bunch of little tractors. Chickens are easily manageable and make great pets. Get you some !

[@JustTheBasicsJS]

I didn’t realize how much compost you guys are making. Ive been making compost for awhile now and I’ve found that I don’t ever have even close to enough. I found a source of clean, free horse manure, going to pick my first load up Friday. Never been so excited about shit! I’ve also found that I don’t have to fight with growing things in dry clay soil, I just layer 4-6 inches of compost every year. Every year I have less watering requirements. Whatever grows continues to grow. Seeds that came through compost- citrus, squash, pumpkin, tomatoes and so much more grows without me even having to plant it. Perennials are left to grow, making dense areas of seasonal fruits. Perennials such as citrus, if they don’t have good fruit get a good fruit grafted on. I don’t have to pay for food, seed, trees, animal feed, or - pretty soon - water. Growing things from seed also brings resilience to disease and pests. I never have to spray and never have before. Things grown along the canal don’t get hit by the yearly winter frost - mangos, avacados and bananas grow well here. Things aren’t really producing heavily yet; fruit here and there. But in the next 2 years I should be able to live off my garden year round, with the addition of my potatoes and sweet potatoes of course. I can’t understand why anyone would ever want anything else. Our society is diseased and as a result we are making ourselves diseased. Keep up the good work and bless you for sharing it with others. I know that takes a lot of work without much in return. Cheers

[@edibleacres]

So exciting to read this, you are deepening and evolving an amazing system!

[@lolitabonita08]

U r so lucky...I lost my entire garden this year it rain so so much for 6 months with maybe 5 days of semi dry days...plants can only take so much water...then the rain stop and we now have a wave of scorching heat and pests are blooming...lolol the only thing that is blooming...no flowers, no fruit no production this year..hey but i have ONE tomato for the entire season...I am happy with it. the rest all is gone...still I planted again beans, squash and other vegies but they are also struggling because of the heat...is this a sign of what is coming...I hope no..

[@lolitabonita08]

but on the flipping good side...I have a huge mount of clippings, and wood chips with hay cooking so it will be ready soon I hope so I can have some vegies this winter in Houston...if we do not have another freeze that will kill all my plants and the few trees i was able to purchase at the beginning of the year...will see...

[@LostCaper]

They say horse manure can be weedy if you don't let it compost. Good fertilizer thou.

[@richiebeecoolstories3884]

I watch every video you post, for years now, and I just thought to myself after seeing that one section with all the raw food scraps, that I have never seen a mouse or a rat in the chicken yard. Not in the coop , not anywhere. The other homestead channels I watch they seem to take center stage. Also other than rabbits and groundhogs out in the growing areas I don't remember you ever talking about them. I'm moving next year and starting a homestead of my own and will be using many things I have learned from you and Sasha, if you could address what you do or don't do I would be very grateful. Thank you for all the things you have taught me, they will be put to good use.

[@edibleacres]

Truly need to cover this in greater detail but quick answer is mice/voles are a zero issue with hens, they simply eat them. Rats have been around in the past and were actually incredibly helpful in aerating the compost! They dug down low and made tunnels. We haven't seen them in a while, I suspect neighbors nearby probably put out poison... We miss them :(

[@sandradelvecchio6894]

One thing I did that I think maybe helped is when I set up my compost I put it right in the center of my animal area, garden beds all around that. Since it’s where I walk all the time maybe it deters rats that would want to be in a more off the path area

[@melodyclark4347]

@@edibleacres My dogs dig them out and eat them like it's their job. 😉 I just found your channel and love it. I'm relocating my coop and goat pen closer to the house. Love the compost ideas, going to implement them as well. God bless you.

[@trolltracker]

Far-right troll alert

[@CourtneyinSF]

I love the chickens so much and it is so fun to hear their conversation when they sense that you are going to turn over the soil and expose worms or give them veggies to eat! They really do sound like they are talking to each other and to you and it is so heartwarming and cozy to watch. While I come for the chicken tv, I learn SO MUCH about composting and cultivating healthy soil by watching your videos and I wonder how much of this information I could use at my mom's house, she lives in the CA Bay Area and in an ideal world I would love to put your compost in her backyard to start it off.

[@edibleacres]

I hope you are able to integrate chickens and composting at your moms place!

[@TheVigilantStewards]

That looks like so much fun! I always find myself wishing we lived by folks like yourself so we could cooperatively do our properties next to each other and learn even more.... but I am SO grateful to listen to you speak about your place on youtube in absence of such! I always feel like the way you speak makes me want to read your library and hear your thoughts so I can absorb some of your perspective!

[@edibleacres]

Super happy to share our ideas and feelings with ya! Consider us neighbors at a distance :)

[@kimberlycrisler6834]

Thanks for the reminder that perfection isn’t always a useful goal. I was feeling overwhelmed with everything needing done-and now I’m not. Thanks!!!

[@yLeprechaun]

Likewise! Some times the best goal for the day is to set back, watch, and see how many things we thought we had to do, are actually just busy work. I struggle with that to. Just today I was disgruntled at how my new chicken compost was not working. Then I looked from a different view and realized how amazing it is. And its only a few weeks old.

[@deborahlee8135]

I used to think similar about perfection, now I watch nature's version of perfect and it's beautiful and messy.

[@shayb1701]

I just love your content, it's down to earth, and enjoy learning more about how you care for your chickens

[@sharongiles6326]

Love watching the hens and all your compost areas !!

[@cliffpalermo]

Every video is a lesson learned. Thank you and more please!

[@adrianforrester325]

I really enjoy your chicken composting videos ,thanks for sharing

[@lapismosi8065]

What a really great channel and way of life you've got going. Love everything!❤️🐝🌱‼️

[@alpinereid5265]

I watched an older video from your channel where you had just rescued several hens. I had never heard of beak burning, etc. Thank you for educating me! I so enjoy seeing your farm and the lovely spaces you've created for your hens. Inspiring and educational!

[@TheOldSwedesFarm]

You've got quite a process to create your compost. Your girls sure look happy! Cheers from Minnesota!

[@LordChumbley]

Really enjoy the content you create. Some of best on KZbin.

[@Direfloof]

This is far and away the most informative video on a homestead scale chicken compost system. Even though our circumstances are different, this gave me tons of inspiration

[@jakes2221]

Sir your setup and videos have been the fuel for me to commit to establishing a compost driven run for my flock. My daughter and I love watching chicken tv! And we also get to enjoy our own version live daily thanks to you! I’ll never not have double digit chickens and I’ll never not bow hunt venison every fall. Natures pursuit of food is something beautiful to be part of. We’re all blessed. Thanks for the content and generosity. You’re a great member of our species!

[@SarahPerine]

Beautiful system as always!!

[@SuperPenguin5495]

I absolutely love this video. Please make more about composting/ just taking us along your journey

[@edibleacres]

Happy to do so!

[@joyadams507]

What a wonderful flock paradise that you have created !

[@summerhill_homestead]

I love your compost videos and how you use your chickens. So many good ideas! I would love to see a video of your chicken coops.

[@edibleacres]

Once we clean it up a bit more :)

[@MrGuyCali]

So much respect for the frequency of the uploads.

[@edibleacres]

Thanks. Been on a roll with them recently

[@SimonHaestoe]

YEP! MOAAAAAR!

[@DE2borknot2b]

Having 2 huge compost bays outside previously for years (sold home since), it's always a bit of a challenge to get the correct level of carbon to green material to that earthy, lovely aroma. A former neighbor was impressed by our compost results, black gold. The hens are happy...still planning on getting some chickens, just not there yet. Your garden looks lush & great.

[@deborahlee8135]

I love that your chickens have a mini jungle to roam in.

[@edibleacres]

We do too. Feels really special

[@leehinch2282]

My daughter had named your white chicken " King Winter " . Doing great work, keep it up

[@erinobrien8408]

I've learned so much valuable knowledge from your videos, thank you for sharing these!!! 🙏 Namaste My hens and garden thank you too! I'm trying to figure out how to do this with fewer chickens and fewer compostable material, on my permaculture gardens.

[@yLeprechaun]

I finally got my system up and running. The chooks are sooo happy. You're a great inspiration. Me n my Ladies are green from envy over your food scrap supply. Wow! We have easy access to endless wood chips, but no food scraps. But did a land an awesome source of grass clippings from a landscape outfit this summer.

[@edibleacres]

Just be careful that the clippings aren't from sprayed lawns! Keep asking on the food scraps and I bet something will line up!

[@IndianPaintbrush1992]

Thank you so much for your videos! We also got a load of wood chips today. Some went to the hens, and some went into reserve for our first attempt at making biochar this fall! I am SO excited. 🙌🙌 Thank you for inspiring us with ideas for better lives for us and for our hens. 💕

[@edibleacres]

Wonderful!

[@tatekohmni]

"Aromatically robust" , ha! Beautiful set up, organization, motivating me to get going this morning

[@edscukas9689]

We do something a little similar. We put woodchips (when we can get them) in the coop and their run and as we need some some soil to plant we grab a bucket and dig in the run and mix with compost. The woodchips from the coop go into the compost as doesn’t get rained on and will be too hot to mix in with the plants.

[@mickybearden9641]

I Love how the Chickens are so willing to Help Spread the Chips...they are such Big Helpers...I just enjoy them so much ❤️

[@edibleacres]

They are helpers when we design a system that invites their style of working :)

[@guidedmisselsn1not]

I can watch your chickens all day

[@catherinesloan4955]

Love Chicken TV - thank you

[@Yeshuaschosen]

Smart idea raising chickens with your plants!I do the same..

[@stephaniewilson3955]

It is nice to see how the hens you rescued are thriving.

[@edibleacres]

We're so happy with how quickly they recovered.

[@antiowarr9467]

Just love it had the vid ready to go a few days now but wanted to wait for the right moment and now with a beer and the easy chair bring it on. lol lol Love chicken TV, I feel more relaxed than the chickens and I always view it 2 times at first. lol They are very productive workers for sure and they don't stop very often and enjoy their job if that is possible for a chicken.lol Thx for the update. cheers.

[@renaissancewomanfarm9175]

I seem to remember you saying, Sean, that you have a small patch of lawn, so I am supposing you also have a mower. You could be taking several flakes of hay and mowing over them and getting them broken up. I am trying to find a better quality leaf shredder that would also handle breaking up manure clumps. I think it would be nice to be able to break up the leaves and manure together and top dressing the mushroom swales with that. As always, your videos give me ideas and today I think it might be cool to put a planter down the center of my long chicken run. Better shade and more of a jungle path set up that might make them more content.Your chicken yard just looks like a fun place to play in.

[@alexguzman5400]

I love chicken tv. They just sound sooo happy!!!

[@jakeh.8754]

could you do an egg collection video? im curious how many eggs you get with this amount of hens... and also what you do with all the eggs

[@RagbagMcShag]

Gotta love how they always go wooOOOAAAH whenever you bring in the goodies :P

[@francinefitzgerald6118]

wow im gonna try the log and rock idea. intersting video.

[@nymbeats]

next year I need to create a dedicated August/September leaf bag cache. I ran out in July and have been using wood chip from a neighbor's pile -- it's great, but so much harder to move than leaf bag. it's just crazy how many pounds of carbon this system consumes.

[@melanieallen3655]

Im always growing seeds & quick growing plants4 my chickens & turkeys.Cheers from Australia.🙂Chicken talk mallows & relaxes me..😁

[@chargermopar]

County does not allow chickens here but the neighborhood ducks all hang out in my garden. I use a lawnmower to mix compost and never turn it. The results are amazing I grow the best bananas !

[@brendacorrea113]

What do you do about unwanted rats getting in the chickens run and compost? Thank you! I have just started watching your videos and enjoying all the good vibes happening!

[@NarrowPathDiaries]

I got a load of wood chips last week from a tree service guy that’s done work from me in the past. Didn’t realize til later that it was mostly Leyland Cypress. Have you ever used Cypress chips? I’ve read it’s not great for veggie gardens but it is for chicken coop bedding. That’s how I’m planning to use it unless I learn otherwise.

[@ndemereambroserukundo9555]

Well done

[@nrocobc581]

Happy hens! Looking forward to seeing if you can use all that excess compost heat for your house or greenhouse in winter. You have a wonderful property.

[@kf8113]

compost heating! all it takes is some basic plumbing skills and lots of copper tubing, Jean Pain did a lot of work/research on this with just wood chips

[@edibleacres]

Thanks kindly. Hoping to make the time to set that up this fall/winter... We'll share notes if we do!

[@gillsmoke]

Ah the return of Chicken TV, they are so lovely.

[@farwoodfarm9296]

I just found a local source of fresh organic kitchen scraps! I’m so excited it’s been a week and I’ve consistently gotten 5-10 gallons of cabbage/lettuce sweet potatoes fries and pineapple etc. You guys have really inspired me to get into permaculture, I’ve expanded my egg business due to this, and it really makes both growing our own fruits and vegetables and raising chickens so much more enjoyable. What’s funny is that I always took a natural approach to raising animals growing up. I loved building mini ecosystems inside a terrarium and only wanted indigenous animals since I could use local sources to create a more natural habitat. Chickens came from jungle fowl and are natural foragers so I’ve included some heavily vegetated areas in their yard, I’ve also located some wild blackberry shoots growing in the yard and have transplanted those into the chicken yard as well. My goal is to continue to grow my compost system with wood chips/leaves/ and food scraps and one day maybe I can be done purchasing layer feed 😁

[@edibleacres]

So wonderful to read this and we're so thrilled for you to expand what you are doing! YAY!

[@lkhfun6575]

Informative, sweet pleasure as usual.

[@johnndavis7647]

What I am doing is putting down 4 to 6 inches of mostly rotted wood chips onto the chicken coop floor. I let the chickens work it over for about six months. Then I shovel up the top two inches of chicken coop soil and I use it for my container garden. I mix the chicken coop soil with peat and sifted wood chip mulch. Works good. I figure the chicken coop soil is about like Back Kow.

[@andrewilder909]

Great vid! Working on something similar so I have compost for my new garden. With all the fresh chicken poop on your compost do you ever worry about salmonella?

[@welshhymnspontrhyd]

Thanks for talking about the use of hay - that’s currently what we have most of, so was planning to use it as a carbon source for setting to the chicken system- will rethink that , and maybe harvest it shorter. Going t be a much smaller set up fortunately- but these things have a habit of growing!!

[@pamelaremme38]

Just be very careful with hay. A lot of the commercial hay is sprayed with Grayzon and it is horrible for plants.

[@welshhymnspontrhyd]

@pamela - it’s our own hay, so fortunately untouched by any spray :-)

[@OnlywayisThroughJesus]

Such happy chickens!!! I love your homestead food forest set up! May God bless you and your household in Jesus Name.

[@simpsongreenhouseandchicken]

We have over 100 chickens and the best part is all the wonderful compost. I don't work mine like you do but I do keep each years rotated so nothing gets burned up.

[@edibleacres]

100 chickens, thats a lot!

[@cindyengland9669]

Good video

[@pamelaremme38]

OMG I would love to have those elderberries and you just shook them on the ground for the chickens! I have wild elderberry all over my property but to have that manoy blossoms. So much elderberry syrup could be made from those berries.

[@edibleacres]

They seem to be a great addition to the chicken yard. Super functional

[@ToraValenzuela]

So nice and relaxing :)

[@mattroberts9569]

Going to make something close to this! Already build a U shape run to start the compost and turn it into piles until the end of the run. Believe it was your idea. God bless!

[@edibleacres]

So exciting, hope it works wonders!

[@slaplapdog]

You dump a pile of wood chips and the chickens get right on top of it! They love to kick through a pile of anything. BTW, todays attire reminds me of Christopher Robin!

[@tomstack6871]

Man l Love me some chickens!! great way to create soil and l set up some milk crates and l throw some of the wheat berries under them with some compost and the chickens go nuts over it when they start sprouting ,thanks for the great ideas

[@edibleacres]

Happy to share

[@ThomiBMcIntyre]

My old Jack Russell enjoys watching chicken tv ☺️

[@wintersfamilyfarm4366]

I have sorta implemented ideas from you in my chicken yard. It’s really small. And I don’t have access to much food scraps yet. But it’s a start.

[@wintersfamilyfarm4366]

Ok bragged you need n my facebook live. :)

[@edibleacres]

I think what is nice about a system like this is you can incorporate whatever aspects make sense for the context you are in.

[@judyosment9785]

A bag of wood pellets from local Tractor Supply makes 3X saw dust after you wet it really good. I promise. Great for horse stalls, chicken coops,etc. What species of wood chips do y’all use?

[@michaelfelder2640]

I'm a self taught architect and country boy engineer from a thousand acre farm/ ranch in NW Oklahoma. Father was senior architect for Ramada Inn. I definitely got the genes. Picture in your mind a simple, old school manure spreader, on an island surounded by a flowing moat filled with chicken loving plants with strategic mini ponds for high nitrogen accumulation runoff that is planted with with duckweed, catails... etc,. Fenced for easy Pickens by the chicks. Inside the spreaders are 3 separate areas for "ingredients". Just add the 3 ingredients, blend when required and the chucks can do the mixing. Using a towable spreader allows for distribution onto new fields, or closer to other parts of the propertie's planted areas. Since the compost will be automatically delivered to the rear end of the spreader, off loading manually will be much easier and faster than a wheel burrow across a 10 acre perma-garden. 2 spreaders would be ideal. One on the island and one making the rounds and distributing free amendments across even the largest parcel of land. Perfect set up to prep and then move both spreaders into a winter hoophouse to feed the girls all winter. The worm castings juice will flow year round with this portable, elevated adaptation. Use your imagination to make this better and please share your findings. Or let me know what you think. If interested I'll discuss my plans for converting a motorized, circular sprinkler system into the largest cattle following chicken run you've ever seen. This idea is a tri-fecta. Cattle, chickens, a hay crop twice a season and the side affect is healing degraded monoculture farmlands on a massive scale, with zero chemical input. This can be done in some pretty harsh areas of the country. Hope this rant opens a discussion amongst like minds. Combined and linked-in we can feed our community, and as a side benefit,the entire world.

[@edibleacres]

Thanks for sharing your vision here, much appreciated! Defintiely a scale we can't work with but hopefully amazing food for thought for others!

[@pelenaka]

Love your version of milkcrate challenge !

[@edibleacres]

Ha, yeah, I saw that somewhere on social media and thought 'what a waste of milk crates!'

[@yoopermann7942]

did you guys have to add the red wrigglers to your system when you first started,, if so how many did you add?

[@TheTrock121]

It is truly amazing how much chickens can eat. We have seven chickens and feed them kitchen scraps, garden greens and many edible weeds such as Jewel Weed and Purslane.

[@Sigmund1924]

Also pretty amazing how much teenage boys eat. Maybe I’ll see if my son would be able to incorporate edible weeds into his diet to cut down on the food bill.😬

[@TheTrock121]

@@Sigmund1924 I just fed the chickens a bunch of Purslane and Wood Sorrel that I weeded from the garden. I wouldn't have minded eating it myself.

[@Sigmund1924]

@@TheTrock121 I tried feeding weeds to my hens last year as a snack. The look they gave me said it all. “We give you fresh and tasty eggs every day. We eat the bugs that chew on your vegetables. We even provide chicken manure as a valuable addition to your compost. Still, you have the audacity to come to our chicken run and offer us weeds? Are you kidding? “ …Now I just give them kitchen scraps for treats.

[@pamelaremme38]

What some HAPPY hens!!!! You have chicken heaven there! I hope you give your chickens grit??? They need that to digest their food.

[@edibleacres]

We definitely offer that up along with free choice calcium. Good reminder to be sure they have ample :)

[@jeremiahnatte9249]

Suggestion--start a black soldier fly bin. They'll eat the food scraps, and then you can feed the resulting larvae to the chickens. They'll greatly reduce the biomass of food into insect biomass. You may need to start a colony by purchasing some (try next year maybe).

[@marie-francegaumont-lecler3839]

I love your channel, amazing ideas! I started composting with my chickens but I have a visiting skunk I've come face to face with a couple of times lately, what do you do with that?

[@edibleacres]

We feed them every single night. Rotten bananas that are super cheap from the local supermarket and every egg that looks bad and nasty goes to them, and we hope they are healthy and have a good life and we can help them. They are our allies and want their best for their family and that is immense and valuable.

[@bentruax6519]

How are you obtaining the greens for your compost mix?

[@edithwortman32]

Muy bonito su video, gracias

[@kev1734]

This chicken heaven! They are living the dream :D

[@jaybaca8880]

Shawn , this was an excellent clip you did... Ok I'd like to know what you do when your chickens start laying foul smelling eggs? In other words, when we hard boil them and eat them, they taste like something bad.. hard to explain. We did try a little bit of garlic a few weeks ago but other then that, we've just been free ranging them mainly

[@edibleacres]

I'm not sure what is happening there, I don't think we've had that experience.

[@rcollyer77]

When my youngest wasn't yet 2, I was roasting a chicken in the oven, and I turned on the oven light to take a quick look. He quickly brought out a chair to watch it roast ... which we've since referred to as "Chicken TV".

[@edibleacres]

ha!

[@LostCaper]

lol sound like it is better t.v. than what you see on the real t.v.

[@Raspukek-fu8un]

blyat this chicken tv is so calming. yes. indeed.

[@shanmacpherson1603]

terrific production of first class compost. the only thing I would do differently is replace the wood chips with biochar. it certainly deals with odor, it massively increases microbial counts because of providing ideal spaces for them, which in turn means the fertility of your compost goes up an extra snack bracket. also, biochar sequesters carbon in the ground and never degrades

[@edibleacres]

Once winter comes on we make it very actively in our wood stove and use it extensively. Right now this is what we have.

[@keithbennett7514]

have you ever thought about using lactobacillus bacteria to help with the smell? i make my own and use a pressure spray bottle to spray it inside my chicken coup roughly once a week. It is a beneficial bacteria for the chickens, it eats bad bacteria, it breaks down the compost faster, and eliminates the bad smell. It eats the ammonia. My chicken coup is roughly 100 yards from my house and i never smell it. It doesnt really have a big smell at all. I just use rice, water, milk, and about 2 weeks to make the lactobacillus. I use it in the coup, spray it on my mulches to help them break down, i spray the plants to keep away funguses,i start my compost inside with it in a bucket and it doesnt smell like rottinig food at all. i even use it in my chicken water thats enhanced with vitamins so that it doesnt sour and get gunky. Lactobacillus eats all the other bad bacterias so you only have the one you put in

[@kellymueller9818]

Do you have a diagram of your set up with chickens anywhere or another video. This is the first one I've seen and I am really interested in it.

[@edibleacres]

We don't have a formal diagram or anything llike that.

[@howtowithhank4791]

How do you deal with those little stickers that are on avacado peels ect.? Do they break down?

[@mnj5089]

I don't know if you will see this question but this has me wondering if one could use a weedeater to chop up the hay first? We get a fair amount of hay waste from our goats for example and I have experienced exactly what you are talking about. We just started really trying to compost this year so haven't tried that yet. But I already notice my chickens quit digging in the compost bin once the hay went on top.

[@edibleacres]

That seems like something you can certainly try. Maybe in a garbage can? Maybe a push mower with a bag on back to shred and collect? I've done that with hay and straw before, with an electric mower and a bag. Worked nicely in small amounts.

[@mnj5089]

@@edibleacres thank you. I’ll put those thoughts on the list too.

[@kelli2152]

New sub 😎. Great video!

[@edibleacres]

Welcome!

[@bellasouldesigns]

Do you have any videos on your worm farming?

[@edibleacres]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZnyxY2qvnK-leqM - Search 'worm' in our video list and you can find many more...

[@joyadams507]

Very nice! One question… do you have any issues with rodents with all of those scraps?

[@timmyjacobs0]

9:35 glowing chicken haha

[@Lauradicus]

I always wish I could have this kind of set up, your ladies are so happy. Question: do you ever have issues with predators? That is what is stopping me here.

[@Dontreallycare5]

He has an episode where he talks about how his chickens are protected from hawks by the trees overhead and the wild birds that live in the trees, the living wall, and the bird boxes he has set up around the fenced in area - the wild birds give off alerts cries that the chickens can know when to go hide. I doubt he has issues with foxes with the kind of fencing he has set up and it being so close to the house. Agroforestry works well with chickens, because they were originally a type of jungle bird and other predatory birds can't effectively dive at them and fly away easily. North American hawks are primarily savanna hunters.

[@edibleacres]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/maOxnaJoer6ri5I - if you want to see some ideas shared in a video from a little ways back...

[@Lauradicus]

@@edibleacres Thanks Sean, I’ll take a peek.

[@Lauradicus]

@@edibleacres Some good strategies for hawks. The ospreys tend to keep the area hawk free and prefer fish… we’re 5 blocks from a bay on Puget Sound. We have owls who can navigate the area pretty well, lots of voles and roof rats keep them around. They tend to stoop from branches in the trees. Raccoons are also a huge issue. They got tired of climbing the fence and actually took a corner of the 6’ cedar fence out completely! Will have to keep cogitating on it.

[@Lauradicus]

@@Dontreallycare5 Owls and raccoons are the main issue here and the coyote population is growing, especially since lockdown.

[@fredosixmilly4396]

Hi Sean, I would like to move to upstate NY and get the ball rolling on my own edible acres, however I fear that it would be hard to find work in such a rural area. Is there an industry that I should focus on to get something just to pay the bills? Curious as to what type of work you did early on? You are the man!

[@edibleacres]

Saw your email and plan to respond in more detail there, but I actually did computer work for a little while when getting started. Doesn't hurt to try to find small farms to work with to get a foothold early on.

[@fredosixmilly4396]

@@edibleacres he gives great advice too!

[@yoqudshomesteadfarm]

Lovely system mate. How many hen do you have? and how many eggs do you get every day with this system?

[@edibleacres]

We currently have around 65 hens and get around 3 dozen eggs a day (older hens lay less :)

[@yoqudshomesteadfarm]

@@edibleacres Thanks. I am planning to apply this system for my eggs business

[@jordonknodel7627]

I realize this is an older post but I was just wondering if you do anything with red elderberry in your system? specifically with the chickens, I have heard they can be toxic. I was wanting another opinion from someone who is very experienced.

[@edibleacres]

We don't have red elderberry growing so we don't have to worry about / design around it. I certainly wouldn't add it into our chicken system...

[@aleksandrazalewa5694]

Can any tree be used for the wood chips or should some trees be avoided? We've got lots of pine but some people say it isn't good for your garden.

[@edibleacres]

For this application it seems fine to use whatever chips you can get

[@resilientfarmsanddesignstu1702]

You have a significant amount of compost being generated. Are you harvesting the heat being generated for hot water?

[@edibleacres]

We've experimented a bit, we need to go deeper with that for sure.

[@venuscousens4172]

I want to let my chickens free range because of the many benefits...unfortunately, hawks and raccoons hold me back. Most of the raccoon predation occurred at night with Roos that wouldnt go in the coop at night. Do you lock up your birds at night? ive not seen you mention where they go at night. Could you expand on that? Thank you. Your videos are full of inspiration.

[@h.s.6269]

Is a livestock guardian dog or geese an option for you? A trained dog would do wonders vs raccoons but idk how well they are vs aerial predators. I know geese are supposed to be good for aerial predators though as they spot them faster and are aggressive at times.

[@kerem7546]

I have a mix of pine and oak directly over my potential chicken compost area. Will the presence of pine straw negatively affect compost production or limit the species I can grow with the compost byproduct?

[@edibleacres]

Nope. Should work wonders.

[@SugarCreekOffGrid]

Happy Chickens make yummy eggs.

[@amberemma6136]

When was this actually recorded?

[@edibleacres]

Two days ago in the morning.

[@zb3948]

Doesn't appear you have an electric fence (I could be wrong). Do you have any problems with predators? Ground or sky?

[@edibleacres]

We have been safe so far.

[@Squiggsish]

How do you prevent rats please?

[@isaachuyard943]

How long do you have to wait to put compost with wood chips onto your garden?

[@edibleacres]

No easy answer, but if you consider it mulch you can put it on right away, if it is to be perfect finished seed starting soil media, maybe 1+ years

[@isaachuyard943]

Yea that makes sense. I was trying to think of materials I could use besides wood chips, that would break down quicker but still hold moisture and nutrient well. Wood shavings or sawdust seem good but I don’t have as easy access to them. What is your experience with dried leaves?

[@frazbmw]

You guys should do an omlette video.